Today the second semifinal will be played - Zoltán László, also known as Zoli, against Michał Żukowski, also known as Zukole! The match starts at 22:00 Warsaw time and is really one of the very central matches of the entire championship.

Zoli is a young rising gomoku star and was ranked by the experts the strongest in this World Cup. So far his performance has been up to the expectations, as Zoli convincingly won all his matches and, in particular, beat 21-0 a couple of his opponents. Zoli is also good at live games - despite a very long break from playing live, he finished second in the recent Hungarian Open Meijin championship, above such gomoku legends as the world champion Rudolf Dupszki and the Czech champion Pavel Laube.

Zukole was ranked by the experts the third in this World Cup and, like Zoli, has a 21-0 win in his track record in this tournament and won all his matches so far. Zukole's style in one-minute gomoku is especially liked by Nirvana, perhaps the strongest Russian one-minute player, who said that it was very pleasant to watch how reasonably Zukole played. Zukole also showed psychological strength in this World Cup, winning a very tough match against Peking 16-14 and being able to adjust his play during that match. Zukole is also very good at live games, occupying the 8th line of the world ranking list and having won the bronze medal of the World Championship in 2011. He is also good at live blitz as he won the blitz tournament of the last Polish championship.

Both players authored nice articles about their gomoku philosophies Zoli's article, co-authored by me and focused on one-minute gomoku, was posted above in this thread. And here is Zukole's article, which is about his gomoku philosophy in general: http://gomoku.pl/joomla/i...d=35&Itemid=120

Whose philosophy will prevail today?

To watch the match, go to playok.com/en/gomoku, click on "guest" (unless you want to use an already registered account of yours), change the playing hall from "bieniasze" to "dobrocin" and click on the table at which Zoli and Zukole are playing. Zoli's nickname is wbczoli, and Zukole's nickname is wbczukole.

I think that a match between Hungary and Poland in one-minute gomoku would be a really exciting event and a nice celebration of the success of the WBC. The participants will really enjoy the team spirit and fighting for their country

As Michał wrote, my original suggestion was 4 vs 4, with everyone playing 10 games against each member of the opposing team. The winner is the team that simply has more won one-minute games in total. Basically, it is like a Euroleague match, with the only difference being the time control (1+0 instead of 10+3) and the number of games with each opponent (10 instead of 2).

Concerning the Hungarians, I have already talked to Zoli and Gergo, and they expressed their interest

We can try to organise a match involving more players, but then it should be Poland vs World, I think

To start organising a match, I would like to get an informal preliminary response from you, Poles Will you be able to assemble a team of four players to play a match against Hungary? Do you prefer a match involving more players with an international team?

Today the match for the third place will be played - the bronze medal will be fought for by Michał Żukowski, also known as Zukole, and Adrian Czychowski, also known as Adero! The match starts at 23:00 Warsaw time.

Both players showed excellent play during this World Cup, but only one of them will get the bronze medal. Who will succeed - Zukole, an established one-minute player, or Adero, the biggest surprise of the championship? Come watch the battle As usual, the match will be played on playok.com in Room "Dobrocin."

On Sat 17 Jun at 21:00 Warsaw time, the long awaited final will be played! It is time to determine who is the best in the world at one-minute gomoku, the most popular gomoku discipline on Kurnik among strong players!

The contenders are Zoltán László, also known as Zoli, and Adrian Fitzermann, also known as Adif, who really stand out as exceptionally strong one-minute players but have different approaches to one-minute gomoku.

Zoli puts emphasis on what he calls by the Hungarian word "rutin." He says it is an "automated" algorithm, i.e., in each position he knows how to play, how the opponent can respond, and how to play next. Zoli's "rutin" was built by learning shapes in the process of playing as well as by analysing positions in which he had a difficulty or from which he lost. Having played dozens of thousands of games, Zoli says he can easily predict next moves from the opponent's style, which is a big advantage and makes Zoli exceptionally fast.

Adif, in contrast, seems to like improvisation and is fantastic at quick calculation and finding smart, sometimes very cunning, moves. Traps as well as confusing and distracting moves, especially in a mutual time trouble, are something Adif is especially good at.

To add to the difference between the playing styles, the contenders represent different countries, Hungary and Poland, which are the leading gomoku countries, so the upcoming final will undoubtedly be an important milestone of the Polish-Hungarian gomoku rivalry. Who will prevail - the merciless Hungarian playing his learned shapes or the creative Pole?

Both players are known to be very good at live games, too. Adif is currently fourth on the world ranking list. Zoli had a very long break from playing live until very recently, so his current rating is not indicative, but he finished second in the recent Hungarian Open Meijin championship, above such gomoku legends as the world champion Rudolf Dupszki and the Czech champion Pavel Laube.

Both contenders have been intensively training for the final. Zoli's way is to hang out on playok.com, playing long duels with strong players available, while Adif has been often seen training with his team-mates - he is a member of the famous Euroleague team "The Lords of XO," known for its team spirit and its charismatic leader, Alex Popiel, who seems to be helping Adif organise his training and preparation. Obviously, the upcoming final is an excellent opportunity to settle old Euroleague scores.

To watch such an exceptional event, go to playok.com/en/gomoku, click on "guest" (unless you want to use an already registered account of yours), change the playing hall from "bieniasze" to "dobrocin" and click on the table at which Zoli and Adif are playing. Zoli' nickname is wbczoli, and Adif's nickname is wbcadif.

The rules of the final are a bit different from those of normal play-off matches: To win the final, it is needed to win at least 22 games and achieve a difference of at least four wins; however, if after 71 non-drawn games still no one satisfies these conditions, the winner is simply the one who has more wins.

Zoli won the World Blitz Cup 2017 and thus became the first world champion in one-minute gomoku! Congratulations to Zoli and all his fans!

Here are some impressions from the final.

To remind, the rule for the final was as follows: To win the final, it was needed to win at least 22 games and achieve a difference of at least four wins; however, if after 71 non-drawn games still no one satisfied these conditions, the winner would simply be the player with more wins in the match.

The final started as expected - high-speed safe play aiming at gaining a time advantage. In the first game, Adif's time expired when Zoli had just 5 seconds left. There were about 130 stones on the board at that moment. Tough start!

Zoli won the second game, too, but then Adif equalised the score - 2-2.

What happened next was Zoli's finest hour. Playing very fast and finding complicated wins, Zoli won 8 games in a row to the excitement of the audience, making the score 10-2. As Zoli said after the match, he was really focused and did his best and utmost during that winning streak.

To Adif's honour, he was then able to fight back as he apparently somewhat adapted to Zoli's style. It also seemed that Zoli got a bit either relaxed or tired. Anyway, Adif started winning games with about the same frequency as Zoli, so the gap stayed more or less the same.

After the score became 20-11, something unexpected started happening as Adif won four games in a row.

Zoli won the next game, making the score 21-15, and thus got four match balls: A win in any of the next four games would bring him the title.

Fighting like a lion, Adif won the next three games, but only to let Zoli realise his last remaining match ball. 22-18. Dramatic ending, especially given the fact that Adif had a relatively simple win in the last game!